The rise of digital photography in recent years has prompted a number of changes in the photo finishing and photo printing industry. While traditional photographic film is developed via a chemical process that is generally performed by trained personnel at specialized photo processing centers, high quality photographic prints can now be produced from digital images using less expensive ink jet printing systems.
Even with these developments, retail photo printing establishments are still often used to obtain prints from digital photographic data. In one type of operation, the photo printing equipment is operated by retail store workers, who obtain digital photo information from customers, then provide the prints to the customer upon completion, in exchange for payment. On the other hand, self-service retail photo printing systems have also been developed, including stand-alone photo printing kiosks. These self-service devices allow a user to download digital photographic data, either directly or via a computer network (such as the Internet), pay electronically (e.g. via credit card), and then wait or return later to retrieve their prints. These systems involve relatively little supervision or oversight from an employee or worker.
One challenge associated with commercial digital photo printing systems, whether operated by retail personnel or in a self-service configuration, is the sorting of orders for customers. Self-service or “front-of-counter” printing devices typically have only one exposed and unsecured print job bin. This configuration can require the user to download data, then wait at that location to retrieve their prints immediately. “Behind-the-counter” digital photo printing systems typically include a collator or order sorting device with multiple output positions. These order sorting systems can be passive and primitive devices, often consisting of a number of plastic paddles or trays. With these devices the burden of sorting and organizing orders falls heavily on a store employee and systematic use of the machine. New employees with limited training are prone to making order sorting mistakes. Behind-the-counter collators rely on order information printed on the output and a trained employee to organize multiple jobs. While this may be simple and effective for experienced employees, new or distracted store personnel are prone to order sorting mistakes. This is particularly significant in an industry in which employee turnover is relatively high.